GF2 GTS V on PC-Chips M729 MoBo w/ Cele 366 @ 550: Which Dets are best?

[Herkulese]

<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I was not sure if this should go into Motherboards, CPU's, Over clocking, or Video. Since the problem that I am experiencing comes up when installing video drivers, I put it in the video section.

I have a Celeron 366 on an ABIT 370 SP slotket, that I have run at 550mhz on an ABIT BH-6 MoBo (voltage bumped from 2.05 to 2.20v), with no problems, for well over a year. This system is a Windows 98 SE system, and I did all of the OS and Software installs with the CPU at 550mhz.

I am now working on a friend's computer that has a PC-Chips M729 MoBo with the BXCel 66/100 chipset, and I just upgraded the BIOS to the 990224s.rom BIOS version. I am using this CPU on this board and had to raise the voltage through the Slotket as there is no voltage control on this board. I have also put in a GeForce 2 GTS V video card.

I have been able to install and run Win98SE, Drivers, and Software with no problems. Now I am trying to set it up as a Win2k system, and with the voltage at 2.20, I can get Win2k to install fine, but I run into problems with video drivers for Gf2 GTS V. When I use the EXE style drivers that you have to actually run the Install process on, the install goes fine, but upon reboot, the screen comes up in color but all garbled. If I use the INF style drivers, that you can install through the Driver Upgrade process, there seems to be no problem.

OK, I have never dealt with an ALi chipset before, and with all of the details of this system on the table: Am I dealing with an Over clocking issue, or am I dealing with a Driver incompatibility with the BXCel chipset?

<U>Again, the system is as follows:
</U>CPU: Celeron 366 at 550 (on ABIT 370SP slotket)
Voltage: 2.20 (set on slotket)
Motherboard: PC-Chips M729
Chip Set: ALi BXCel (66/100)
BIOS: 990224s.rom
Video Card: GeForce2 GTS V</SPAN></SPAN>

 

[Herkulese]

UPDATE: In a fresh install of Win2k, I tried installing the Nvidia Det 23.11 at normal clock speed and voltage and, upon reboot, got the same garbled screen.

 

[Rhuwyn]

Define Garbled if you would.

 

[Herkulese]

"Define Garbled if you would."

Very small blocks of randomly different colors, some single, some together like strips, etc..... It also appears that the screen is duplicated 5 or 6 times from left to right, but it is so garbled that it is hard to tell. It appears that it is beyond the capability of either the card or the monitor, which is not the case for either item. I am only setting it to 16m Colors and 800 x 600 res. Both the card and the monitor can handle beyond 1024 x 768 at 16m colors.

 

[Peter]

Well first of all how about going back to un-overclocked speed to see whether the stuff works at all?

If still no go, you might want to install ALi's AGP drivers. However, thanks to the power consumption of GF2, you might be out of luck with this old board that still follows AGP 1.0's much lower power allowance. Another factor is that ALi's 1621 chipset does not play well together with some NVidia chip graphics cards.

Good luck.

regards, Peter

 

[Herkulese]

"Well first of all how about going back to un-overclocked speed to see whether the stuff works at all?"

Very good point, and I did just that. I set everything back to default and did anothor complete clean install of WIn2k and then the video driver, with the same results.

"If still no go, you might want to install ALi's AGP drivers. However, thanks to the power consumption of GF2, you might be out of luck with this old board that still follows AGP 1.0's much lower power allowance. Another factor is that ALi's 1621 chipset does not play well together with some NVidia chip graphics cards."

I was beginning to think exactly the same thing, until I did a clean install of Win98SE with this Video Card, and found it to work fine. I did however, at that time, run into a problem with the AWE32 sound driver that I have never seen before (been using these for years, and this one has always been in this PC, on this MoBo). After installing the sound card, rebooting and installing the driver (either Win98's driver or the one from creative) and then rebooting again, I get this error message:

[Read Error in c:\Windows\System\Synthgm.sbk].

Very stange

 

[Peter]

Weird behaviour in varying spots? #1 suspect: RAM. www.memtest86.com

 

[Herkulese]

Now .... this is realy weird.

I took the video card out and put it back into my son's PC, (Celeron 1ghz / ABIT BH-6 / Win2k) and got the same garbled screen. It was working perfectly before removing it, to put it into the other PC.

The only thing that changed on my son's computer is that he forgot that there was no video card in it and turned it on.

Could the card have gone bad, or does starting with no card mess up the driver, or what else might be going on here?

 

[rogue1979]

Maybe the other motherboard didn't support 1.5v for the AGP slot and fried the video card.

 

[Peter]

None of the two does ... but the Geforce 2 is a "universal" AGP chip that can do 3.3V on AGP 1x/2x mainboards just as well.

Most likely, you zapped the card with an electrostatic discharge somewhere during that DIY attempt.

regards, Peter

 

[Herkulese]

This is the first time that I have had a card go bad on me like this. I am still using the motherboard, video card, sound card, and modem that I bought for my first computer, 6 years ago (Pentium 100). Those old parts have been moved to several different computers over the years and all are in different places now. Granted, the old 28.8 modem gets little use, but it still works.

Anyway, my son was dead set on calling Visionteck tech-support, which he did (he is 13, and it is his video card that went bad). He explained the entire situation to them, and to my suprise, they deemed the card to be defective and are going to replace it. The rep said to call for an RMA and give them his name and tell them that he determined that the card was defective. My son has the RMA number and we will be sending it out on Friday.

Now I see why Visiontech is one of the highest ranked resellers of nVidia based video cards.

I have determined that this old mobo is not worth wasting any more time and/or parts on. I have convinced my friend that he would be better of to spend a few hundred dollars and have me build his son a new middle of the road Athlon XP system, using some of his old parts, as well as some of mine (He is the minister of my church, so I do not mind giving him the labor, as well as some of my old parts, plus, I will be traiding him out of some of the old parts that I, recently, sold him for the old machine, that now does not work any more.).

It is disapointing, though that I was not able to get this old system up to speed, as it did quite well in Madon 2002, and Tony Hawk, with the Celeron 366 at 550 and the GF2 GTS V.

 

[outriding]

did you try to boot the pc in safe mode by pressing F8 early in boot up and select safe mode ?

the monitor might handle the 1024x768 but you didnt mention the refresh rate that is what is important you might have to tone the

rate down. 72 mhz should work with just about all monitors at that resoultion.